Patrick Taylor

Cycling in the empty Welsh mountains during the 2020 Covid 19 lockdown


Start picture: Crib Gogh up ahead

Never to be repeated.
Music: Bon Iver.

This is Rob (my son) on his bike on a beautiful summer day with absolutely nothing and nobody on the roads. Like in a dream and you're the only person left in the world.

Dream this too: Rob with a friend on a completely empty Snowdon Horseshoe lockdown walk on just as beautiful a day the same year.

And at once, I knew I was not magnificent, high above the highway aisle.

Holocene – Bon Iver's gorgeous song – seems apt for this empty land in the age of man. What the songwriter, Justin Vernon, said about it:

And we had a little smokey-smoke and took a walk down the road, and it was so quiet, and it was already quiet 'cause there's not a lot of people traveling, and it was really a kind of spooky night. The air's just hanging, and we went and walked over to this bridge over I-94, and there just wasn't a single car. There was nothing for miles and miles, and the air was hanging in such a way … it just came out, like at once I knew I was not magnificent, you know … it was one of those moments where you're not really sure if you're the creator of something or you've just been handed something to share.

Filedate: December 28th, 2024